This is a HUGE car and I think my own would fit into the boot/trunk Another great shot of a grand old car my dear Andre. The tones are lovely and kind of soft and delicate for this sleeping giant. Another wonderful piece of journalistic motoring history my friend.......Well done. My very best wishes to you as always.......Ray

Hi Kes, I know a lot of people here tend frown on using Photoshop and other programs to manipulate their images. But all photography is manipulation anyway. So what the heck. Hey! I haven't used a wooden tennis racquet in quite a few years now. I even drive a car with an automatic transmission. So why not use Photoshop:) Andre

Thanks for the interesting explanation, Andre. I don't have Photoshop. It seems there are several different versions of it and I'll probably end up with one someday...perhaps that would be a good winter time project, as it seems spare time is of a premium this summer. kes

Hi Kes, Nice to see you back. I meant 8 to ten in the trunk!! :) Levelling in Photoshop is the term used for adjusting the tonal range of the colours. It can also be used in B&W and Sepia. I find that I am never really satisfied with the results directly out of the camera. What I usually like lately is adusting the levelling bars so that the image becomes a bit darker with richer colour, then I take some of the edge off it by doing a little desaturation to the overall image. The tonal levelling can be done with individual colours or the overall image. Same thing goes for saturation. Hope this helps. Andre

Thanks again Nick, I'm glad you are reading so much into my images. I always feel a certain amount of reverence for these old items. As you try to explain, they remind us of a simpler more innocent time, when we were not concerned with global warming, depletion of the ozone layer or where to store our nuclear waste. Andre

Andre, thank you so much for all the explanations that put on an additional new light in my own thoughts about those times.

Bes sure that the messenger (you) does introduce a great amount of creativity in such subjects that else would be only tin and iron. You manage to capture them in that straight way that allows them to speak their story.

And exactly this they are telling, namely of the times when most of us didn't knew about the damage they cause and still drove them careless but without that kind of sword hanging over our heads.

To me it implies a very interesting question. Could it be that any paradise is nothing but the naive acceptance of things, that gets way more difficult to live with when one starts thinking more and deeper? If so, then: Though I still prefere the deeper thoughts that could perhaps stop that damage, I still may feel some sympathy for that innocence out of unknowledge the same way I might smile with a small child hunting pidgeons away just for fun.

Perhaos too philosophic for photography - I don't know, but it seems to play a huge role.

Hi Nick, To answer your questions, first of all, most of the old cars and trucks that are in the woods have been taken in the same place about 2km from our family summer cottage. The first ones that I posted are from 1969/70. B&W kodak tri-x taken with my Nikkormat when I first started phottography. I have a few shots of my young brother posing beside an old 1954 Chevy back in the early seventies. A couple of years ago, I did the re-shoot with him. The old 1939 International Harvester truck is the first vehicle that I ever drove. (in the farmer's fields) All of these images can be found in my "Cars and Drivers" section. The "auto graveyard" belongs to the farmer that sold my father our cottage land back in 1962. The land is in an area of Ontario Canada called the Madawaska Valley. (about 200 miles north east of Toronto)

To answer the second question, I think the cars and trucks do their own talking :) I like to think there is some creativity on my part, but for the most part, we photographers are really just the messengers :)

I too would have preferred this green giant to be surrounded by trees like some of the other images, but the farmer had other ideas :)

I like your explanation about the effect the big car has on you. There is some good, some bad and some strange innocence about it. These things come from a time not long ago, when most people that used them had no idea how much damage they were causing to our enviornment or how wasteful they really were. I'm glad you like these images. It is one of my favourite places to shoot, and I'm sure I will be back again. Andre

Question number 1, Andre: Where the h**l do you find all those oldies in the middle of nature?

Question number 2: And how do you get so much of their story on a single photo?

I almost hear it telling me stories about a worls, that was perhaps not as perfect, as romantic remembrance wants to have it, but much simpler and in some ways also naiver. There was the good and the bad, the nice and the ugly, and pocket calculators were miracles of the future. ;-)

Excellent DoF and detail, but also coloring. I would prefere it all in green, without those white walls at the background, but they do give some additional sense of depth.

Thanks Andrzej, It is in the same little area that a lot of the abandoned cars in my portfolio come from. The VW is nearby. The old school bus, 54 Chevy and old farm truck are also near by. This one could probably be restored. Still it has been here for a long time. Notice the plates have 1973 on them. Andre

Andre, does she has any buddies or friends in the area or just lives lonely life slowly assimilating with nature. She still proudly carry Ontario license plate and seems like she's on her 4 feet. Nice story, NJ